We always, always, always get ahead of ourselves with young players. “Ike Howard followed the Matt Savoie path, thrived, and hes a lock for a roster spot on a feature line” is what many of us are thinking today.
It’s important to take note of what we know, and especially what we don’t know. So, here’s a timeline I believe we can agree on:
- Oilers trade for Howard, a brilliant college scorer
- He struggles for NHL ice time and is sent down to the AHL.
- Howard works hard on the ‘away from puck’ aspects of the game, and impresses Colin Chaulk.
- Oilers fire Kris Knoblauch, hire Mike Babcock.
- Oilers have an active offseason, but leave Howard with enough room to find daylight on the 2026-27 roster, possibly on a skill line.
We don’t know what we don’t know, but Stan Bowman isn’t burying Howard in the same way Ken Holland buried Philip Broberg. I have been saying for several years the Oilers need to marble youth into the lineup, and am hopeful Howard finds his way in a fashion similar to Matt Savoie one year ago.
There are no guarantees. The passage above predicts the future for Ethan Bear, Evan Bouchard and Ryan Mantha. It’s from the summer of 2019.
In 2019-20, Bear would emerge as an NHL regular, playing 71 games, scoring 5-16-21 and delivering a five-on-five goal share that was impressive considering the team and the amount of time spent versus elites (via Puck IQ). He was a fifth-round selection who would go on to play 275 games.
Ryan Mantha had real promise as an NHL prospect, but lost his career to the eye injury. His 2017-18 season was quality and he looked to be in the mix with several young Bakersfield blue when he got hurt.
Evan Bouchard ran headlong into Ken Holland in 2019, and the general manager put him on the ‘overripen’ plan that would eventually lead to Philip Broberg’s offer sheet. Stack ’em and rack ’em, Old Dutch made Bouchard wait until 2021-22 before finally allowing those cherry passes to McDavid free.
So, when we say “Ike Howard will make this team and play 75 games, score 20 goals and deliver a strong season” that should not be the reasonable expectation.
A reasonable expectation? I’ll say 50 games, 12 goals, and some time on depth lines in the season to come.
How can Howard impress Mike Babcock? Work his bag off away from the puck, get in the way of those passing lanes, turn over pucks that lead to goals. His natural talent will flow through, that’s a given. He has to do it in very little preseason playing time, too.
And one more thing. If Howard does play 75 games, and scores 20 goals, make sure to give him credit for it. If you predict that kind of production, and then say “it is what I expected” then you’re taking credit instead of giving it. Wildly unfair to the player. Your expectations of this player will be unreasonable if you project 75 games. There’s too much roster and coaching change for that kind of prediction.
Ike Howard is entering training camp with some positives. He’s a really good player who can do the toughest thing in hockey: score goals. He has a general manager firmly in his corner.
On the other hand, he will need to impress a new coach who will love Mathieu Joseph and has a veteran (Kasperi Kapanen) returning to the roster. Opportunity is there, but that doesn’t mean Howard shoots that gap. We do well to acknowledge the reality of the situation. Howard has a great chance, but nothing is guaranteed. If he plays most every night this season, for goodness sakes give the young man full credit. This is a steep climb.
On the Lowdown today, our feature guest will be Steve Lansky. We’ll talk Oilers offseason, CFL in Kelowna and World Cup Canada weekend. Noon to 2pm, Sports 1440 and You Tube.
Hi everyone..i suggest this song for this subject?..haha
“ballad of the sad young men”
a great song sung by a master Mark Murphy, before there was a Kurt Elling
https://youtu.be/EWkK-o2OC9c?si=bPIBX0_7srV7MbiC
Thank you!
I think it’s funny they have not released the terms of Babcock’s contract.
Pretty much exactly what he did in the AHL last season and what Bowman spoke about in detail on with Wilkins yesterday. He was asked to, and became, impactful away from the pick. Bowman sounded highly impressed with his progression last season and acknowledged the team does not have a ton of natural goal scorers.
I think it would behoove the org to have him on the team and in the top 6. Let’s not forget, there are 4 exhibition games and a max of two for vets over 100 games. There is no time for competition for roster spots but only to “see the lineup” and get ready.
Stauff and Louie talking about team toughness and Stauff saying they, my mid-season, he could see Dach at 3LW and Clattenburg called up. Was quick to say Clatt has to work on his game but if he does, he could see it mid-season. That is exactly what I’ve been saying and I go further to provide the facts that he simply did not do that past re-assignment last season. Here is hoping he listens to his organization this season and works on hockey skill come Sept and Oct – the org knows he can hit and fight and has no hesitation to do either, he does not need to prove that any longer.
Who is going to sit or get demoted?
He seemed to have exceeded expectations when he was called up. He played a mature game with no glaring mistakes. I don’t know if you know this but Connor was Captain in Junior the man can skate and he has skill. It’s one hell of a story a 5th round pick of the Edmonton Oilers played meaningful minutes and games as a 20 years-old. The longer you’re an Oiler fan you realize at his age and draft position this is a once or twice occurrence over a 50 year period.
It’s a weird feeling having a very solid July 1 (it seems), being comfortable with the team and having quite a bit of cap space and flexibility.
Roster spots being the team limitator right now, not cap space. Ability to run a 23 man roster with room. Shit, they could have a few players on regular IR (does not open cap space) and fill in with left NHL replacements.
This could be a legit really big deal as the season moves on.
Did anyone in the west, let alone a real rival, really improve, at all let alone more than the Oilers? I mean Vegas might be worse and they are right up on the cap signing specific contracts to max needed LTIR – they don’t have the flexibility to improve on-season like the Oilers do.
I’m told some teams added cap space and any day now they’ll pull off the huge move that will end all moves but that the Oilers won’t be able to do that with their cap space for reasons…..
There’s too many young defenders, there’s got to be a trade or two more coming.
Emberson
Stastney
Shakira
Carfagna
Akey
Regula
Leppanen
Cibulka
They’re not all going to graduate, Bowman should cull half of them.
Stastney, Akey, Regula, Leppanen out? 3 of those 4?
They have Brown/Stillman still in the AHL, Emberson/Shakira on the big team.
Condors:
Brown
Stillman
Carfagna
Cibulka
Leppanen maybe?
Bunch of unsigned prospects, not room for everyone.
Time for a 3 for 1 trade.
I think Josh Brown is a player who stays, after that we’ll see what the 7-8-9-10 look like. Currently, I would rank them:
This is probably about how the team sees them. There are 5 NHL D signed past this season (1-5 on your list) and 2 prospects (Cibulka & Akey). I suspect Mukhamadullin gets a multi-year extension as well. They have two unsigned players than need to be signed by next summer (Fischer & Sharp) both of whom seem locks to be signed. Other than Stastney, I don’t see any real decision they’ll need to make before mid-season.
Having 7 NHL D and 8 AHL D isn’t an issue for this summer. I do believe we’ll see some go with in-season trades.
There’s a narrative about Babcock being tough on younger players which I don’t believe is true.
If you look at the 2017-2018 Maple Leafs, there were a lot of young men who found their way. Some of them were stars — Marner, Matthews, Nylander. Others were prime-aged, like Rielly, Gardiner, Kadri. Others were young and maybe not expected to have the careers they would end up having (Kapanen, Brown, Hyman).
Babcock loved Hyman. I remember a quote from him, around that time, when Hyman returned from injury. Leafs were struggling a bit at the time. He said to reporters (paraphrasing), “Hyman, he’s pretty good, isn’t he?” He wasn’t the Zach Hyman then that he is now, mind you.
The 2026-2027 Oilers will have fewer young players than that Leafs squad, but the ones we have will be important ones. I suspect if Howard can ingratiate himself well to Babcock, he’ll get a ton of opportunity.
If anything, it’s a few guys that were washed up vets at the time that they crossed paths with Babcock that seem to have a very vocal axe to grind with Babcock over the years. York, Commodore, Modano, Spezza.
The Franzen thing is real weird one though … he played his entire career for Babcock, and they won a Cup together. I’m guessing that Babcock thought he needed some tough love to squeeze a bit more performance out of him at the end of his career. He miscalculated, the old school approach didn’t work and the relationship fell apart.
I’ve suspected that as well. Lots and lots of NHL coaches have been and are “yell at them till they’re good” types. We even have a term for coaches that aren’t jerks in “player’s coach”. I don’t believe I’d enjoy working for Babcock but I feel the same way about Cassidy, Tocchet, Keenan, Berube, Crawford, Tortorella, Sutter, Burns, or even Scotty Bowman.
Rejean Houle, who played for Bowman with the Canadiens in the 1970s, summed up Bowman’s mind games by telling Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated, “To understand Scotty, you have to know one thing: What human nature dictates, he does the opposite.”
Do I think Babcock pushed too hard with some guys? Yes. Does it make him wildly different than some other coaches? I don’t think so.
I think Babcock got that reputation in Detroit when Holland was the GM. You’re right, when you look at the ice time given out when he was in charge of the TML he used lots of young guys and seemed to use his top three lines and top 4 D pretty evenly as well. A 21 year old Morgan Rielly as his ice-time leader over 30 year old Dion Phaneuf but the difference was about a minute from 1-4 on the D.
I think that Babcock prioritizes players that can play well and if a young player can show that, he’ll play.
Savoie and Howard are assets for the OIlers to upgrade thier top six with a legitimate NHL forward that will score playing with Draisatl and McDavid, especially Draisatl.
The present is all.
As always.
The problem with the present is all is that it passes. If this is not the first time that “the present is all” then the present has already been deemed nothing. The only reason the McDavid window feels like it is on the verge of slamming shut is because the future was sacrificed for “the present”. The fastest way to close the window is to move out good, young, cost efficient players with upside for aging, declining, expensive vets (who might have NMC’s).
Very much this. They sent a bunch of youth out the door but seem to have realized the mistake. Trading a couple of under 25, $1M scorers for an $8M 30 or older “established” scorer that produces marginally more in the short term is not a winning strategy.
The Oilers score enough. They were 6th in scoring last year and 1st on the PP. Acquiring a star scorer doesn’t change a whole lot when you have to forego stronger players through the rest of your roster.
GM’s can take a view of the future (even just 6 months down the road) and I expect Bowman has this 75 games 20 goals vision of Howard in his mind.
Coaches live in the win the next game at all costs world and bury young players who don’t instantly produce. I’m worried Babcock won’t give Howard the runway needed to be 75 games 20 goals.
Coaches and the team need some breathing room to play younger players and experiment. This team takes forever to get in gear and that makes it exceedingly difficult to give the young guys a chance. My hope is with more structure, better goalie options, and a more even defensive group we won’t fall on our faces out of the gate this year.
Smart coaches realize they will need the youth to contribute later on and into playoffs. While also not burning out the elders.
It would be a mistake to not have them ready to do that.
Without saying the name or the exact words, Staiff saying the Oilers are trying hard to add Giroux.
Just looked and could not believe Giroux is 37. He average 16 minutes toi last year and had 49 points. Decent.
Wait, what? Didn’t I just read the name Jeff Skinner in the last comment?
can’t wait to see the contract, any suggestions? NMC?
Would a 1 year @ $2.5 million be enough for Giroux?
What a great sports weekend we have on tap.
Oilers fans can continue to bask in the glow of newfound management competency and cap efficiency, while pondering the myriad lineup options now possible
Football fans can cheer on the green and gold in the hopes that they can continue their current run as the only unbeaten club in the CFL with a win in the Lion’s den.
And those other football fans (that’s soccer to you mate), can rally across Canada as our side plays an historic match that could launch our country into the elite class if Team Canada can channel the hopes of the country and pull off the upset.
Let’s do this!!
I’m just so happy the vibes have flipped. It’s not ALL sunshine and rainbows but the next 3 months of discussion won’t be complete doom and gloom which, at least for me, isn’t not near as much fun.
Jeff Skinner Summer all over again. Jeff Skinner Fall and Jeff Skinner winter will come.
Boo
But without the real negatives of Nurse and Skinner.
Acknowledge reality.
At least you have your mighty St Louis Blues to cheer for.
🙄
Skinner had no role on the team. He was a one dimensional scorer who never saw PP time because he wasn’t good enough. Same with Mangiapane and Roslovic and Ardvidsson. These are valuable fits on bad teams. Giroux will have a defined role in the bottom six and actually provide value by winning face offs and being a pest.
I say, Sir! I say.
I like the layers Bowman brought in. Not guaranteed success, but the left side of the defense and the net especially have more than one solution available. A most reasonable approach for a team hiring a coach who will live out of a suitcase for the year.